Penn A-Z index to include social media offerings

The Penn A-Z index is like the Yellow Pages of the University, featuring an alphabetical listing of websites officially recognized by Penn, and pathways to departments, programs, publications, organizations and services.

Over the summer, this frequently used utility, found at the top of Penn’s homepage, www.upenn.edu, will undergo a major revision, and will display the various social media offerings alongside their official Penn websites.

“Social media has become mainstream,” says Steve Minicola, manager of web communications in the Office of University Communications. “As an institution, we now rely upon these channels to engage with and disseminate information to our various audiences. The A-Z index sees a lot of traffic, so it’s important that it reflects the conversations and outreach efforts outside of the constellation of websites that make up the Penn domain.”

The index system is accepting account submissions for YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, Flickr, iTunes, RSS feeds or blogs. Icons for these sites will be displayed at the top of each A-Z index page, with brightly colored dots indicating the social media in which departments, centers and groups participate.

“We’re trying to gather as many accounts as possible in the initial phase,” says Minicola. “We don’t plan to display them until we have an accurate reflection of the richness of campus life.” Social media addresses will be displayed on June 1.

You can help keep the Penn A-Z index up-to-date by adding, updating or deleting departmental references at www.upenn.edu/penna-z/.

Penn Current Express

Quoted Recently

“It’s a very confusing time. … This legislation has happened before we have a medical consensus about what to tell women.”

— Emily Conant, a professor of radiology at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, on laws in 21 states that require doctors to tell women they have dense breast tissue, which can raise their risk for cancer and hide abnormalities. New breast-imaging technologies promise to detect more cancers in women, but can bring more false alarms as well. (The Wall Street Journal, Feb. 23, 2015)